I think it also depends on what you are going for though. Sometimes, it makes more sense to get less costly hosting, if you don't need the site for something that you're expecting to get money back from.

Is there a very reliable, knowledgeable, low cost reseller package that you recommend at any particular host? I want to attempt all this but honestly am afraid I will end up dropping the ball so I thought getting a reseller account and playing with it for a great while might be reasonable but can't afford to spend a lot.

That would be a great idea to start as a shared hosting reseller. You may consider to sign up individual hosting package or reseller hosting package. After that, you could also sign up the hosting package with monthly billing cycle. If the hosting provider offer full money back guarantee, that is even better.

If you do not wish to spend more and still wish to host more domains under one control panel then choose that web host which provides multiple domain hosting plan. Here you get the additional features which are supported by this plan.